Prescription Stimulants\u27 Effects on Healthy Inhibitory Control, Working Memory, and Episodic Memory: A Meta-Analysis

The use of prescription stimulants to enhance healthy cognition has significant social, ethical, and public health implications. The large number of enhancement users across various ages and occupations emphasizes the importance of examining these drugs\u27 efficacy in a nonclinical sample. The present meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the magnitude of the effects of methylphenidate and amphetamine on cognitive functions central to academic and occupational functioning, including inhibitory control, working memory, short-term episodic memory, and delayed episodic memory. In addition, we examined the evidence for publication bias. Forty-eight studies (total of 1,409 participants) were included in the analyses. We found evidence for small but significant stimulant enhancement effects on inhibitory control and short-term episodic memory. Small effects on working memory reached significance, based on one of our two analytical approaches. Effects on delayed episodic memory were medium in size. However, because the effects on long-term and working memory were qualified by evidence for publication bias, we conclude that the effect of amphetamine and methylphenidate on the examined facets of healthy cognition is probably modest overall. In some situations, a small advantage may be valuable, although it is also possible that healthy users resort to stimulants to enhance their energy and motivation more than their cognition

Objective and Subjective Cognitive Enhancing Effects of Mixed Amphetamine Salts in Healthy People

Psychostimulants such as mixed amphetamine salts (MAS, brand name Adderall) are widely used for cognitive enhancement by healthy young people, yet laboratory research on effectiveness has yielded variable results. The present study assessed the effects of MAS in healthy young adults with an adequately powered double-blind cross-over placebo-controlled trial. We examined effects in 13 measures of cognitive ability including episodic memory, working memory, inhibitory control, convergent creativity, intelligence and scholastic achievement, with the goals of determining (1) whether the drug is at least moderately enhancing (Cohen\u27s d \u3e= .5) to some or all cognitive abilities tested, (2) whether its effects on cognition are moderated by baseline ability or COMT genotype, and (3) whether it induces an illusory perception of cognitive enhancement. The results did not reveal enhancement of any cognitive abilities by MAS for participants in general. There was a suggestion of moderation of enhancement by baseline ability and COMT genotype in a minority of tasks, with MAS enhancing lower ability participants on word recall, embedded figures and Raven\u27s Progressive Matrices. Despite the lack of enhancement observed for most measures and most participants, participants nevertheless believed their performance was more enhanced by the active capsule than by placebo. We conclude that MAS has no more than small effects on cognition in healthy young adults, although users may perceive the drug as enhancing their cognition

Anyons and the Bose-Fermi duality in the finite-temperature Thirring model

Solutions to the Thirring model are constructed in the framework of algebraic QFT. It is shown that for all positive temperatures there are fermionic solutions only if the coupling constant is $\lambda=\sqrt{2(2n+1)\pi}, n\in {\bf N}$. These fermions are inequivalent and only for $n=1$ they are canonical fields. In the general case solutions are anyons. Different anyons (which are uncountably many) live in orthogonal spaces and obey dynamical equations (of the type of Heisenberg's "Urgleichung") characterized by the corresponding values of the statistic parameter. Thus statistic parameter turns out to be related to the coupling constant $\lambda$ and the whole Hilbert space becomes non-separable with a different "Urgleichung" satisfied in each of its sectors. This feature certainly cannot be seen by any power expansion in $\lambda$. Moreover, since the latter is tied to the statistic parameter, it is clear that such an expansion is doomed to failure and will never reveal the true structure of the theory. The correlation functions in the temperature state for the canonical dressed fermions are shown by us to coincide with the ones for bare fields, that is in agreement with the uniqueness of the $\tau$-KMS state over the CAR algebra ($\tau$ being the shift automorphism). Also the $\alpha$-anyon two-point function is evaluated and for scalar field it reproduces the result that is known from the literature.Comment: 25 pages, LaTe

Transnational education: global location, local innovation: a report produced for UUKi

Transnational education (TNE) is the delivery of an educational award in a country other than that in which the awarding body is based. It can include, but is not limited to, branch campuses, distance learning, joint and dual degree programmes, fly-in faculty, or a mix of these, often referred to as blended learning. The UK’s higher education TNE offer is growing in terms of both scale and strategic importance, and TNE is becoming a core component of many universities’ strategic approach to international growth. The large majority of UK universities (84%) now deliver TNE to over 700,000 students worldwide with this number having increased year on year since 2007/08. This means that the UK higher education sector now provides qualifications to more students overseas than to international students in the UK (approximately 450,000). The increasing scale of activity belies a huge variety in the types of TNE partnerships being developed by UK institutions. Drivers for engagement with international partners are diverse, relating to international strategies, to research priorities and to student and staff mobility. This publication aims to illustrate the breadth of engagement by highlighting 17 examples of TNE partnerships involving UK higher education institutions

Cognitive Enhancement

Cognitive enhancement refers to the improvement of cognitive ability in normal healthy individuals. In this article, we focus on the use of pharmaceutical agents and brain stimulation for cognitive enhancement, reviewing the most common methods of pharmacologic and electronic cognitive enhancement, and the mechanisms by which they are believed to work, the effectiveness of these methods and their prevalence. We note the many gaps in our knowledge of these matters, including open questions about the size, reliability and nature of the enhancing effects, and we conclude with recommendations for further research

The future of UK universities’ transnational education engagement

Transnational education (TNE) has become a core activity for many UK higher education institutions, and supply-side and demand-side factors continue to support its growth. TNE lifecycle starts with filling the gaps in the supply of local higher education before its focus shifts to diversifying local provision, enhancing its quality and developing its capacity in niche subject areas. As a result, TNE generates substantial local impact and explicitly responds to the sustainable development agenda